Angkor Wat

The temples of Angkor were just as impressive as we have been led to believe. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day who picked up up from our hotel at 5AM. We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. We then spent the next few hours visiting the different temple complexes of Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm, as well as stopping at smaller temples along the way. Angkor Thom's highlight is Bayon- the temple has over 200 serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak. Ta Prohm is amazing to walk through as the complex of temples has been overgrown by trees and plants.
According to recent research, Angkor was the largest pre-industrial city in the world, with the he closest rival being the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, which was between 100 and 150 square kilometers.

Phnom Penh

It is our second day in Cambodia's capitol city and the weather is hot, hot hot. We arrived around noon yesterday, checked into a hotel and headed straight for Psar O Russei, a huge market where we ate from one of the busy food stalls. We had a fifty- cent plate of thin fried noodles with vegetables and then had some Cambodian sweets and dragonfruit for dessert. From there, we headed to the National Museum where we admired over a millenia's worth of Khmer sculpture. The museum was housed in a beautiful early 20th century terracotta building of traditional design. After having a look at the exhibits, we relaxed in the museum's courtyard where we both briefly passed out from heat exhaustion and dehydration. We vowed to always have a large bottle of water with us at all times from then on and then headed to the Royal Palace. The majority of the complex is home of the country's king, which is closed to the public, but we were able to wander around many of the pagodas and stupas. The most impressive of the sights there was the Silver Pagoda, whose floor is covered with 5000 1 kg silver tiles. We had dinner at a really popular local restaurant after a scheming monk at a wat (temple) asked us for money for his personal pursuits.
Today, in an effort to escape the brutal heat, we started our day early, taking a moto-taxi to the Russian market and hit up some more food stalls for breakfast. For an after breakfast snack, we got some durian. We wallked to the Tuol Sleng Museum, a very sad and depressing museum documenting the brutality of the Khmer Rouge during 1975-1979 at the S-21 Prison, which is where the museum is now located. At the museum, there are thousands of photographs of all the prisoners who were tortured and killed there, with all the photos and documents in the rooms where this brutality had taken place. It was very intense and sad how many atrocities like this have already happened in the past and how many like this continue to occur. Don't we ever learn?
We are now back at the hotel escaping the midday heat and will walk around when the temperature starts to cool down this afternoon. We plan to adopt this new strategy of sightseeing as it is going to continue to get hotter as the days pass. Tomorrow we head to Siem Reap and will spend a few days at Angkor Wat.

Now in Cambodia from Phu Quoc

S and I have just arrived in the beach town of Kep in southern Cambodia. We sadly said goodbye to my dad, Heather and Jeremy this morning. We had such a great time traveling with them and are so happy that they came to visit us! We spent the last few days relaxing with them at the beach. Phu Quoc Island is very beautiful, with water that is calm and warm. Two days ago, we celebrated my father's birthday by finding an isolated strip of beach where we looked for crabs, ate lots of fresh fruit and swam without anyone else in sight. Yesterday, Heather, Jeremy, S and I rented motorbikes and rode all over the island. We visited the springs and waterfalls in the north, which were dried up as it has not rained in months then visited Bao Sai beach in the southwest. At first, I was a little nervous on the bike but was really enjoying it by the end.
This morning, we caught a ferry from Phu Quoc to Ha Tien, where we hired motorbike drivers to take us to the border, wait for us to cross and then take us to Kep. We started out the 35 km drive with each of us holding onto the shoulders of our motorbike driver but, once we crossed the border into Cambodia, my driver said he had to go home for an emergency so I hopped onto Steve's driver's bike. Three adults on a motorbike is not particularly comfortable but we arrived safely in Kep around noon. We have just checked into a hotel and are going to go explore the city once it cools down. So far, I have a wonderful feeling about Cambodia. All the border officials were very nice, did not cheat us and were very curious about our itinerary. The landscape along our drive was picturesque, with stretches of farmland as far as the eye could see dotted with small homes with thatched roofs. Kids ran out of their homes to say hello to us as their family's cows grazed in the front yard.
Kep, which was a colonial retreat for the French in the early 20th century, has a nice stretch of beach with lots of Cambodian families picnicking and swimming. This afternoon we will walk along the promenade to the Crab Market and watch the sun set on the beach. Tomorrow morning, we will make our way to Cambodia's capitol city, Phnom Penh.